From the Book "The Power of the Spirit" by William Law (PART 1)

by David Leach
(Temecula, Ca)

Rom 8:6 Now the mind of the flesh, which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit, is death...But the mind of the Holy Spirit is life and peace. AMP

Eph 4:17 ...You should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, (governed entirely by the intellect).Phil 2:5 (Instead) Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus (what mind is this since its not referring to Christ's brain?)1 Cor 2:11 ...No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.2 Tim 1:7 God has not given us a spirit of fear but (His Holy Spirit) of…a sound mind. (our choice: Our brain or the Creator of the brain)

Chapter Nine:Natural Reason Opposes the SpiritSome have complained that my writings oppose the use of natural reason. If so, then the same complaint must be made against our Lord for saying, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself take up the cross, and follow me" (Matt, 16:24). For how can a man deny himself without denying his reason, unless reason be no part of him? How great is the folly proposed by those who allow the denying of self to be good doctrine, but boggle and cry out at the denying of reason as quite bad. For how can a man deny himself except by denying that which is the life and spirit and power of self? And what else could this be, if not man's reason? For if man were not a rational creature, he could not be called upon to deny himself . What makes a man a sinner? Nothing but the power and working of his own will in independence from God. And what does his will follow in determining its choice, if not his own natural reason? Did not Satan appeal to Eve's reason, in enticing her to eat of the forbidden fruit?

And therefore, if our natural reason is not to be denied, we must keep up and follow that which works all sin in us. For no man could be responsible or judged of God any more than the beasts, except that his carnaIity has all its evil from his intelligent nature, reason being the life and power of it. "For the carnal mind is at enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7), And what is the carnal mind, if it is not our natural reason? Our blessed Lord said, "Not my will, but thine be done" (Luke 22:42). And had not this been the form of His whole life, He could not have lived without sin. To deny our own will thus that God's will may be done in us is the height of our calling; and as far as we are kept by the Spirit of God from our own will, so far we are kept from sin. But who can separate his own will from his natural reason? For it is reason that gives self-direction and power to man's will. And without the corruption of natural reason enticing it, man’s will would have no reason to do ought but yield to the will of God. For it is our reason which justifies self in its independent disobedience; and it is this above all which must be denied for man to be a servant of God.

Without this full denial of natural reason, there can be no true faith, for the man who believes only that which his reason can establish has no more faith than he who believes only that which any of his five senses can verify. Nor could we ever experience and know the realities of God's eternal kingdom, except by denying our reason; for those things are by their very nature infinite, but our own reasoning powers are limited. Hard as this may seem to unregenerate nature, yet it is truth firmly established in Scripture, that this full denial of our own natural will, including our own natural reason, is the only possible way for divine knowledge, divine light, and divine goodness to have any place or power of birth in us. All religious knowledge that comes to us through the gateway of our own natural reason, great as men may consider it, is only great in vanity, emptiness, and self-deceiving folly. For all the evil and corruption of our fallen nature consists in this; it is an awakened life of our own will, under the power of natural reason, plotting and justifying its rebellion against the will of God. Especially do the workings of this carnal mind, or natural reason, which is the same thing, oppose within us this call of Christ, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (Matt. 18:3).

Whether this self broken off from God reasons and contends in favor of or against various Scripture words and doctrines, the same evil state of fallen nature, the same death and separation from God, the same corrupt desires of flesh and blood will be equally strengthened and inflamed by the one as by the other. The astute reasoner on doctrinal matters, who is mending church opinions here and fixing heresies there, forgets all the while that a carnal self and natural reason have the doing of all that is done by this learned zeal, and are as busy and active in him as in the reasoning agnostic or scheming worldling. Bad logic in defense of transubstantiation, or better reasonings against it, signify no more toward the casting of Satan out of our souls than a bad or better taste for art. Hence it is that papists and Protestants, for the sake of their different excellent opinions, zealously hate, fight, and kill one another as enemies; while at the same time, as to the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, they are in the highest union and communion with one another. Hence also it is that Christendom, full of the nicest, most carefully reasoned decisions about faith, grace, works, heresies, and excommunications, is yet full of all those evil dispositions which prevailed in the heathen world when none of these religious opinions were yet known .

All that I have here said is neither more nor less than Paul meant when he declared, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them (1 Cor, 2:14) . . , but as many as are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom, 8:I4). What higher proof, then, can a man give that he is that very natural man cut off from God, living to self, than to deny the necessity of abandoning self with its natural reason to the lordship of Christ and the fullness of His Spirit! For where self or the natural man is become great in religious learning, the more firmly will he be fixed in the religion of proving himself to be right, rather than in surrendering to the will of God. But where self is wholly denied to take up the cross in following Christ, there nothing can be called heresy, schism, or wickedness, but the lack of loving God with one's whole heart, and one’s neighbor as oneself . Nor can anything be called truth, life, or salvation but the Spirit and power of Christ living and manifesting Himself in mortal flesh.

Does not God call men to use their natural reason when He says, "Come now and let us reason together" (Isaiah 1 : 1 8) ? Indeed He does call men to a proper use of their reason, but not to an improper one. We have no spiritual need except for a restoration of the divine nature in us. And if this